Thoughts on Derangement

According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology¹, derangement is a term that refers to a disturbance in the regular order or normal functioning of something, and is sometimes used loosely to mean mental illness or mental disturbance¹. Another source defines derangement as a disturbance in mental functioning². The Cambridge Dictionary gives a similar definition, stating that derangement is the state of being completely unable to think clearly or behave in a controlled way, especially because of mental illness³.

If you had an acquaintance who continuously and consistently insisted on the stating opposite of patently observable facts, you would probably be concerned about them in a short amount of time. For example, if you commented on the recent win by the Kansas City Chiefs over the Buffalo Bills and they earnestly insisted that the Bills won the game by a perfectly executed field goal, you might laugh at first, thinking they are joking. If they persisted in this fiction, especially if they did so in all sincerity, you would start to wonder what’s wrong with your friend. If this behavior was repetitious, e.g., “it’s still 2023”, “I drive a Porsche”, “I wasn’t there with you”, you would probably believe they have a mental disorder or neurological issue. What I don’t think you would do is dismiss it as “Oh, that’s just Dave, he does that all the time.”

This brings me to Mr. Trump. It seems to me he fits the above description but we have come to accept his behavior as “Oh, that’s just Trump; he lies all the time” instead of wondering how deranged or neurologically impaired he may be. We have become immune to the absurdity of his rhetoric, the clownish nature of his claims, chalking it up to buffoonery & bluster. In turn, we are inured to all other outlandish claims, Nikki Haley’s overt claims of victory in Iowa and New Hampshire despite the basic math of a larger number is greater than a lesser number.

I think we have lost the ability or willingness to apply logic or critical thinking to verifiably obvious “alternative facts”. News reporting holds none of these statements up as ridiculous nonsense and certainly doesn’t appear to aggressively challenge outright baloney. Everyone shrugs and moves on.

Is this because constantly scrolling data and images deadens us to stimulus? Are we simply so used to being fed input that we just accept what we see and hear without examination? Have we become the joke: “If Abe Lincoln said if it was on the web it had to be true”? It’s as if someone statred pumping sewage into your house and you simply accepted it as a thing that now happens.

I think we need to stop accepting derangement as normal and call it out for what it is. Just because someone beclowns themselves regularly, that doesn’t make it normal in any world. By normalizing bold faced lying and absurdity, we find ourselves in a surreal landscape where is derangement is normal and sanity is the outlier.

Resist absurdity, call out the ridiculous.